Shimla: Congress candidate Pratibha Singh was declared elected from the Mandi Parliamentary seat counting to which was done today. She defeated her nearest BJP rival Jai Ram Thakur by a massive margin of 1,36,724 votes.

Voting for bypoll was held on June 23 and 27 in two phases after Kinnaur was hit by flash floods.

A total of 53% of the 11,24,786 electors exercised their franchise in two phase of voting out of which Pratibha Singh polled 60.67 per cent votes while Jai Ram Thakur got 37.24 per cent votes.

Congress candidate secured lead in all the assembly segments except Seraj assembly segment, which is the home constituency of BJP candidate Jai Ram Thakur where BJP led by 2,556 votes. Congress got the highest lead of 24,099 votes from Rampur in district Shimla followed by Bharmour assembly constituency from where she attained a lead of 16,117 votes.

The lead secured by Congress constituency wise is:

Balh – 11,776 votes

Karsog – 5,581 votes

Sundernagar – 5,700 votes

Nachan – 4,948 votes

Drang – 9,643 votes

Jogindernagar – 491 votes

Mandi Sadar – 6,060 votes

Sarkaghat – 4,342 votes

Kinnaur – 11,589 votes

Lahul & Spiti – 5,991 votes

Manali – 3,782 votes

Kullu – 10,144 votes

Banjar – 8.075 votes

Ani – 10,942 seats

Chief minister Virbhadra Singh in a statement thanked the voters for the massive victory of the Congress. He said the victory confirmed that people have full faith and confidence in the policies of his government.

Mandi constituency is the second largest constituency which includes Kullu, Mandi, some areas of Chamba and Shimla districts and tribal districts of Kinnaur and Lahaul- Spiti,

Mandi parliamentary seat underwent re-election after Virbhadra Singh resigned from the seat after he became the Chief Minister in December 2012.

In 2009 Mandi Parliamentary elections, Virbhadra Singh of Congress had defeated Maheshwar Singh of BJP by a margin of 13,997 votes.